Not again.
She swallowed.Once, twice, trying to tamp it down.Goddess Juna.She clenched her jaw and heaped silent curses on Iseult, but couldn’t stop the rush of nausea.She turned away and vomited on the floor until her stomach muscles protested.Her breath came in hoarse pants, and her mouth tasted as if a Dalcon black bum-bug had crawled in there to die.She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth and straightened.A weak groan spilled past her lips.
Something else to clean up before Iseult summoned her.At the thought, she hurried to the intercom and buzzed Iseult’s personal chef.
“Iseult requires a celebration feast.”
“When?”Amos, the chef, asked.
Betrys rolled her eyes and prepared for a diatribe.“Later this evening, once Iseult has recovered from her mating.”
“How the frack am I meant to cater for a feast without supplies or advance notice?”
“Iseult is the boss.”She jerked her frame upright in a fighting stance.“I need to clean the web and deliver…something.Send a list of what you require to my genic-tab.I will return to the mansion as soon as possible and aid you with preparations.”
“Don’t make your promise an empty one.”Amos slapped off the intercom, making it shrill in Betrys’s ear.
“That went better than I expected.”She glanced back at her trolley and her vision blurred.
Death, and her part of it, should have become commonplace—a means to acquire safety—but this broke her inside and the razor-edged shards dissected her psyche, ripping her apart.She’d admired Leo, the way he’d turned up as promised and approached Iseult with attitude.Not that his bravery had mattered in the end.
Leo Mitchell was still dead.
The man had family who’d wonder at his absence.She’d collected the details before Iseult took him for the first feeding.A sob escaped.It was easy to imagine their anguish and sorrow at his passing.She swiped away the rain of tears and wheeled the trolley along the passage to her private rooms.There she retrieved cleansing cloths and pulled back the sheet.Pride and decency wouldn’t allow her to send Leo on his final journey to the goddess in this condition.
The scent of antiseptic cleanser sent her stomach heaving again, but she took small, quick breaths through her nose and began her self-imposed task.Iseult mightn’t care about the men she killed, but Betrys felt compelled to give them the dignity they deserved.
With his back done she struggled to turn him again.She shoved and heaved, pushed and tugged, and managed to get him flat.Her quick gaze skirted his wounds, then she frowned.His erection had subsided.None of the other men…
She shook herself and reached for another cloth.Quickly, she cleansed his shoulders, his arms and legs.His cock… She hesitated, grabbed another cloth and briskly cleaned his groin area.No different from bathing her son.No different from bathing her son.No different—
Leo groaned.
Betrys started and let out a shockedeep.She backed up, hand and bloody cloth pressed to her breast.What the goddess?
Long, tense moments later, after staring at the trolley, the sound didn’t repeat, and the tension eased from her muscles.No, bodies made noises after death.That was it.Nothing to alarm herself about.She inched closer, poked his thigh with one finger, and puffed out a breath when nothing happened.A light laugh emerged, filled with relief, a hairsbreadth from hysterical, and she resumed her task.
“You gonna rape me too?”
Betrys squeaked and scrambled backward, her feet tangling in the loose material of her robe.She struck the floor ass first and the pain on contact reverberated up her spine.Righting herself, she scuttled farther away until her rear hit the wall.
His eyes were open.
He was talking.
Leo is alive.
“You’re alive,” she repeated her thought, her mind navigating the tangled web of how and why.She came up with nothing that made sense.
“Feel like shit.”
Betrys’s thoughts skittered left and right, leaped over hurdles before she came to a conclusion.“Shush, Iseult mustn’t know you’re alive.”
“Why?”he gritted out, but he did lower his voice.“She fuck her men to death?”
“Yes.Always.No one has ever lived before.”
He tried to move, moaned, his face contorting in a mask of pain.
